After The End
by Wildcard
Summary: The Sennen Items are gone, but their legacy lives on. Ryuuji wears his scars like armor, and the world has lost its ability to hurt him. Birthday ficklet for Cairnsy, a darkish gen AU.


After the End

_After the End_

What nobody knows is that after his encounter with Yugi and the Pharaoh, after he lost the game to them, after he betrayed his own father to save them, after his father died because of his betrayal -- Ryuuji Otogi was _damaged_. In a very specific way.

Ryou Bakura would've recognized it. So would've Yugi Moutu, or Malik Ishtar, if Ryuuji had ever let them close enough to see the danger signs. Ryuuji was too smart for that. He formed a triangle with Shizuka and Honda instead, using them as blockades to stop anyone from seeing him as a suitor (danger) to Shizuka. When they thought of him, they thought of him in terms of that, and that was harmless, just a teenage crush.

It explained away everything, just like Ryuuji's other had said it would. Ryuuji calls him his other, because 'yami' sounds so pretentious. And he's not entirely sure how dark his other is. He says things that Ryuuji has thought (sometimes) and seen (in his nightmares) but he makes them sound attractive. Dangerously so.

But surely Ryuuji's other isn't that dark, because he doesn't challenge the Pharaoh to Yami no Games and he doesn't go after the Sennen Items and he advises Ryuuji on how to _not_ attract attention, on whom to avoid and whom to speak to.

Ryuuji's world was shattered when his father died. In a sick way, he's a little glad to have someone telling him where the broken glass is that he shouldn't step on, and whom he should show his scars to so as to gain their sympathy.

And his other tells him stories in the night time when Ryuuji wakes up screaming and who cares if those stories never end happily? It's the sound of his other's voice that Ryuuji likes. It's the reminder that he's not alone, even with his father dead (_tou-san!_).

Ryuuji's fifteen. He's been taking care of his father all his life. And now, he let his not-yami take care of him, and he does as he's told (as he always does) and he waits, waits, waits.

The Pharaoh and the Thief will eliminate each other, his other says, and Ryuuji agrees.

Then the world will be ours, his other says, and Ryuuji isn't sure he wants the world, and maybe this is a sign that he should be talking to someone about the voice in his head and the ghost-boy in his bed, but... He was their enemy. He was nearly responsible for Yugi's death. He put Jounouchi in a dog suit, and the last one is the only one that anyone is willing to talk about.

Ryuuji won't ask any favors of them. Not of them. He likes his other better than them anyway. His other understands him (and of course his other does, his other says with a laugh, he's him and pronouns are just so confusing when it comes to the two of them that Ryuuji doesn't bother).

He waits, and true enough, the Pharaoh and the Thief and the Guardian leave and the world is rid of the Sennen Items and their power.

_Good_, his other says, and Ryuuji remembers waking up and being worried his other would be gone as well. Good, because now there is nothing unpredictable to get in their way.

Everyone thinks that life will get back to normal. Card games will just be card games again.

Life does. Card games are.

It's business as usual, and Ryuuji's a business man.

There's more way than one to skin a cat and there's more way than one to rule the world.

Money and magic both begin with the same letter; it's almost magical what a person can do if they have enough money.

Ryuuji has money, followers, and most important of all, a better-smarter-stronger-stranger version of him to act as his advisor.

And one morning, he wakes up to realize that he rules the world and his yami is smiling at him out of the body of the socialite that Ryuuji had bedded last night, his not-yami's features stronger than hers though he's transparent.

_Now_, his yami says with a kiss to Ryuuji's mouth using the body of the girl who wasn't half as pretty when she was herself_, now we have everything._

They live happily ever after. They don't care how the story ends for anyone else.

_Fin._

Author's Note: Birthday ficklet for cairnsy, who is utterly awesome and also one of the major reasons that I love Ryuuji so much. Her Dragon Child story is probably the best Ryuuji story ever – go read it now!


End file.
